Chinese scientists discovered that a meteorite of Martian origin that hit Earth in Morocco in summer 2011, contains signs of water and organic carbon combinations, which may be evidence of extraterrestrial life dating 700,000 years back in time.

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The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), of which the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF)  is a main partner, has successfully observed asteroid 2014 KC46 in one of the faintest Near-Earth Object (NEO) recoveries ever performed. This challenging observation, which pushed the limits of the telescope down to a visual magnitude of 26.3,

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A “fireball as bright as the moon” has been spotted moving across the sky above Northern Ireland, according to the Irish Astronomical Association.

IAA president, Terry Moseley, said the sighting was reported by member of the association who works at the Met Office in County Antrim on Tuesday evening.

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We are not Alone: Government Sensors Shed New Light on Asteroid Hazards

This diagram maps data gathered from 1994-2013 on small asteroids impacting Earth’s atmosphere to create very bright fireballs (bolides).

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What’s a comet that doesn’t look like a comet? The question sounds contradictory, but astronomers believe these objects exist. As comets pass through the solar system, they bleed ice and dust as the Sun’s effects wash over their small bodies.

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The final countdown for the European Space Agency’s ambitious mission to land on a comet in deep space has begun.

After 10 years, and a journey of more than six billion kilometres, the Rosetta spacecraft is set to launch its fridge-sized Philae lander on to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 12 November.

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Nuclear explosives have long been considered as a means of deflecting or disrupting an asteroid if there is insufficient time to use other deflection techniques. This recent article from the Wall Street Journal has stirred increased controversy about the role of nuclear explosives for planetary defense:

Some U.S.

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In the fall of 2016, an Atlas-V rocket will pierce through the atmosphere and leave Earth’s gravity behind. After the engine has burned up its fuel, the nose faring will open to release its payload, the space probe OSIRIS-REx.

Silently,

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A fast-moving comet is about to fly by Mars for a one-in-a-million-year encounter with the Red Planet, photographed and documented by a flurry of spacecraft, NASA said.

The comet, known as Siding Spring (C/2013 A1), has a core about a mile (1.6 kilometers) wide in diameter,

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Peering out to the dim, outer reaches of our solar system, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered three Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) the agency’s New Horizons spacecraft could potentially visit after it flies by Pluto in July 2015.

The KBOs were detected through a dedicated Hubble observing program by a New Horizons search team that was awarded telescope time for this purpose.

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